Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
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same ISBN, different book formats
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I am having similar problems to yours, similar questions I'm afraid. I've been buying eBooks, frequently they don't have an ISBN (ASINs instead) or they have an equivalent eBook ISBN. I added one manually, to see what happened, but it just came out as two books. In an ideal world, I would have been able to add an edition that was already combined with the equivalent printed version. Anyone know how to do that?
The system is unable to combine editions automatically. They must be combined by a librarian. But if you post the link to the ebook you added (or any other edition format) we'll be happy to combine them for you. We do it all the time. :)
Kirsty wrote: "How will it be handled on Goodreads, since the format is wrong (even though the ISBN is duplicated)? Similar to alternate book cover editions?"Yup. And here is your new Nook eBook edition.
Amara wrote: Yup. And here is your new Nook eBook ..."Thank you!!
But I guess I'm still confused. The edition Amara created shows that it is an eBook, but it has no affiliated ISBN. My book does have an ISBN -- it just happens to be the same ISBN as the paperback 2002 format. Is there no way to have an edition that specifies correct ISBN and correct format, if the ISBN is a duplicate of a previous format?
Kirsty wrote: "Is there no way to have an edition that specifies correct ISBN and correct format, if the ISBN is a duplicate of a previous format?"No, there is not. All ISBNs in the GR database must be unique. However, you can add it to the description.
vicki_girl wrote: "No, there is not. All ISBNs in the GR database ..."Thanks for the clarification!
I appreciate the info, but it seems to me that the design of GoodReads could use a little updating for the eBooks situation. Basically eBooks are being published based usually (but not always) on a printed edition of the book. Sometimes they have another (e)ISBN pair, sometimes an ASIN, but basically it would be a more optimal user experience if we could just add alias'es to the original printed edition, without this whole create another book, merge it thing. The alias would include basically these fields as potential changes:* (e)ISBNs (if different) or ASIN
* Publish date (sometimes this is different)
* Format (eBook or Kindle or...)
That would save a lot of work and duplication of effort.
How will it be handled on Goodreads, since the format is wrong (even though the ISBN is duplicated)? Similar to alternate book cover editions?
(Also, since I'm not a librarian, if there will be a new edition with same ISBN but indicating different format can someone else create that for me? Thanks.)